A Baduk Blog

Day 20

North American Pro Qualifiers begin today. We are covering it live on Twitch (BadukClub is the channel)

I will be watching so much Go this week. It's amazing that I know three of the competing players. I feel really lucky

This game deserves to be more popular

Is it fighting spirit or can you not admit when you're losing?

It's just a good question.

However many ways you think it can go, it can go so many more ways than that.

Day 21

What the strongest players are willing to do that weaker players can't imagine, is make trades. Really big trades. There are things you think are necessary to save, but they have no problem letting go. However, they squeeze the value out of everything. Even dead stones.

Because as long as it's on the board still, it has influence. Every stone holds looming threats.

Regarding instigation and showing your hand:

A thought- “Because you made that move, I now know that this move is important.”

Moral:

Don't show your opponent their best moves by playing yours too early.

Your opponent’s stones look dead- So what? They're not captured, they're still on the board. That means if you're not alive with your surrounding group they can kill you back and capture you first

Go has a necromancy feature built-in. Capture is more final than death

Day 22

I want to know how strong I really am. And I wish I had someone to play with more consistently in person that was genuinely right at my level.

I played a go variant today called tetris go. It was very interesting. I'm not necessarily here to learn variants but I need to not always take the game too seriously.

I should do another tournament this year.

Our streaming of the pro-quals has been fun

Day 23

I've been asking for too much, thinly. That is a strategy, but only if you don't expect to keep it all. It's making a challenge to the opponent. Trying to make them envious, and instigate overplay. But I think I'd rather ask for just enough, solidly.

Thoughts from watching Ed play Paul

“I'm going to make you double down on your double down” (over concentration). Can you make your opponent invest too much in one thing while you get to spread out your assets?

Day 24

The pleasure of losing to someone who loves the game so much.

Thank you for not letting me get away with moves that other people let me get away with.

Today I played too kindly. I need to finish my fights.

Mind-space. Orb. A mind-palace for while I play. Building it.

Day 25

Things to do during a liberty race:

Count liberties Increase liberties Make eye if possible Falsify eye Trip up (Time buying tesuji from outside) Thicken the moat (Buy time from inside) Take liberties from outside Take liberties from inside Make ko Tenuki Capture

ZChen (Michael Chen) decidedly won the North American Pro Qualifiers today, not dropping a single game. So he's the next American professional. Congrats. It's amazing how no matter how good someone is there will always be someone better.

If you're not going to be the best, what do you aim for? To be your best and to have a good relationship with the thing; to enrich your life in the pursuit of it. Some get to make it their life. Others get to have it be a part of their life. It's good either way.

Thank you for the game. Next time I will-

Day 26 and 27

Teaching a game to a complete beginner is a beautiful and high-responsibility chance to articulate a particular lens on what it means to play it. The lens I believe will be the most helpful and useful to that person as an entry point.

Day 28

1 Style is when you have two good choices and you choose one because it's how you want to play

-quoting Ed, quoting someone who's name I don't remember

2 On the board you either learn how to make the impossible possible, or how to accept the impossible is impossible

Day 29

Time is moving fast. I have five days left here. I am extra focused

Speaking of time, I only have time to do so many things on the board. When I play Go I see my tendency to spread my self too thin. Very rarely does everything survive.

I need to manage less groups. Or at least, try managing one at a time. Or, not more than my opponent is managing. Balance the tension.

I left my plot armor on. I can do anything, I act like.

But no I can't. I can only do what I've laid the groundwork for. I can do what there is time for. I can do what my opponent will let me get away with. I should assume nothing.

Make it to end game. Remember

Day 30

Today I am going to study the rabbity six and how all dead shapes are nested inside of it like Russian nesting dolls. Today I am going to write down some Japanese words and memorize them. Like, Nakade. Inside move. Today I am going to put into words: how to time Nakade.

Nakade means “play inside”. If you think you can throw in to take a group's eyes out, see first whether it will spur the group to run somewhere you would have rather played. If so it's not the time. Play where you'd rather first. They will owe you their own inside move.

Go is about time and using it better than your opponent. You think it's about life and death and winning but it's about not wasting time. It's about flexibility and negotiating what you want to do in the time you have in shared space. The time and space is equal. Desire

If you don't listen to what your opponent wants and adjust desires accordingly you are on a path of inevitable frustration. Go is frustrating if you don't listen. Life is frustrating if you don't listen to how it is changing around you. Your wants are important, but..

You're not the only one here. You're not alone. Why are you so above being influenced? Why the rigidity? You think if you want what you want bad enough you'll prove it possible. That's an idea. That's a thought. From some childhood moment probably. Somebody told you that

Don't win. Play. Don't lose. Play. As well as you know how to. Converse. Listen. Respect. Adjust. Speak your conviction on the board if you can prove it. If you can't, are you just hoping? Just guessing? Imagine and discover with teachable confidence, what you can have.

Rabbity six, Flowery six. The flower containing all poisons. Know them like the back of your hand, to avoid them being used against you. To know you can use them and how to if you must. Your knowledge of shape is a tool and a looming threat. Your asset and security

Count. See, even in your writing, rushing through and making small mistakes. Missing details. Though forgivable, you trip on them sometimes. Take the extra moments and with discipline, count. Calculate value. The math working today is your intuition working tomorrow.

Day 31

There is a difference between slow and solid. If it was solid I don't need to worry that the move was slow.

I gave my Go lecture today finally. I titled it “Flower of Death, Containing All Poisons” which is super dramatic, I know, but memorable. Which is the point.

Going to try playing simpler. Less risky. More solid.

But there will always be the part of me that, on the board, just wants to fight. Maybe it's a matter of keeping that part of me contained until needed. On standby. All parts of me are welcome, but well delegated.

Day 32 Why would I want to poison you? I only shall if necessary. And then I can and I will. I can find the holes in your thinking. If you ask for too much I can take the value back. I can win by making better shape than you.

Winning is different than destroying. You only have to win by one point. I don't have to play all-or-nothing games. The small details of negotiation can be as stimulating and probably more often satisfying than a big dramatic fight. This is what I'm here to learn.

I've been in the company of a few of our country's best amateur competitors. That's a win. That's something cool that I'll always be able to talk about with pride. I'm glad I keep my eyes open for opportunities like this and glad I said yes to myself and applied.

Yesterday I had a game with a very equally-skilled player, Alper, and it was really fun. I lost because I assumed a group was alive that wasn't. Typical! ha. I hope I get a game with him again in the future. Maybe at club, maybe in a tournament sometime somewhere

Day 33, last day

Studied tsumego, noticed my reading has improved a lot Finished game with Ed Went to go club, played Katie Got lunch with Devin Paul Katie and Ed, gave goodbye hugs Napped Started second season of The Abyss Played Devin in a game of go (boss battle) Packing

This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Both on the board and off I improved myself and simplified my thinking. I am understanding in detail things that I was only guessing at before. I am upgrading habits. I am doing the work. This was a level up.

http://Apply.Baduk.Club

If you want to learn more about the program I've been posting about and especially if you have any interest on immersing yourself in the game for a month. If you love Go and can work it into your life, I don't think you'll regret it.

Post Residency Thoughts:

I am back in Wichita, KS. Back at home. I am continuing my daily tsumego practice and keeping a lot of correspondence games going. I am missing my new Columbus friends already but plan to see them again for more Go adventures someday. I am more confident than ever that intentionally improving at the game of Go has helped me improve myself as a human.

Some things I feel I improved on thanks to Go and community during this 33 day residency:

Value judgements, timing, efficiency, listening/respect of opponent, proving theories or giving them a chance to be disproven, teachability/humility, connection, relationships, solidity, pacing, spatial reasoning, accuracy and depth of reading, sharpness of memory, pattern recognition, awareness of cultural trends, vocabulary from other languages, discipline of mind, consistency, risk-management, multi-tasking and task-management in general, respect for tradition and those who have played before me, willingness to innovate, accuracy, flexibility, style, negotiation, stamina, mental and physical health.

Thank you for reading!

-William (DotQuist)

Day 11

Attempting to make my own trick joseki called the throwing star (the flying knife already exists). Studied pincer josekis with Ed. Took a lesson from him, too. Realized a blind-spot in my reading. If it will take two stones or less to get surrounded, keep jumping out.

Post-lesson notes from Ed:

Key points: Timing of Aji: -Create list of potential points of aji and work through how your opponent would 2. respond in an ideal way for them. -In general, reducing eyespace precedes playing points of strong aji

Joseki: -Joseki are not fixed, they are an assortment of tools to be used to affect the whole board state in a way that you want.

(adendum: I think picking the josekis at the beginning is like deciding on a map to fight in, like in a fighting game, after you pick your characters, you pick a level. You’re building it from the corners, as you fight. The map appears in front of you, the fog of war lifts.)

Whole-Board mentality -Pinch self every few moves to remember to assess the whole-board -Local loss is acceptable for global gain -Read several local options to pick the best for the whole-board situation

Day 12

Sometimes I have to make a mistake so many times in a row I get tired of it and refocus. It's good to be playing enough that I have a chance to get tired of my bad habits.

I desire to play timed games as much as I can from now on. It helps me focus.

Day 13

Streamed tonight for 4 hours. I'm three followers away from 100 on Twtich which is exciting and makes me feel encouraged. I want to offer go lessons someday. I am playing go that makes better sense, but still slipping up sometimes in later midgame when the board gets cluttered.

Day 14

The difference in effect between 3rd and 4th line stones is more significant than it seems.

Day 15, August First

1. Turn 2. Split, 3. Play inside. That order. For killing groups of stones.

Large scale, I can see all the important moves but a lot of them I don't get to on time before my opponent gets there. My order of events is off. My priorities unsorted.

Metaphor

Day 16

Metabolism.

If you get surrounded by your opponent, you will eventually become the negative space inside your opponent's group. You can become a dead shape on purpose. Once swallowed, become a poison. Your opponent will try to make you a vitamin. Resist. Become death.

Connect solidly so your opponent doesn't exploit your weaknesses. If they're good, they will. If you ask for too much, move too fast, become too thin, you will get cut up and that means you have to know how to deal with that. Easier to just connect solidly.

Are you 600% sure you're going to be able to kill that group? If not, don't make the game depend on that one situation. In general. Try to avoid having the entire game depend completely on whether you're right or wrong about one thing. Spread your investments out

Part 4

If you can train yourself to read faster, that counts for a lot. If you can read 3 variations (accurately) in the time your opponent can read 2, over the course of a game you'll see so many more possibilities than them. How much more likely, you finding path to victory

Day 17

Preparing a lecture on life, death, metabolism, and strange corner-physics

Day 18

We played a lot of blitz in the evening. I don't like playing that fast. I learned some one-space-high-pincer josekis.

Check your connections. Watch the clock. Focus your aim. Don't think, though. Edhellen says. Flow.

Day 19

Was mostly volunteer work. Graphic design and OBS/overlay stuff for the pro qualifiers.

But a big thing is, I decided on a temporary goal for my Go playing- Get all my games into end game. I will win or lose there instead of middle game. This feels important.

Day 1

Arrived after 16 hours on the road. Situated most my belongings and made bed. Met Ben Kyo and Devin. Touched stones. Going to bed wondering what to really focus on for my studies (I have ideas but too many). Excited.

Day 2

I played (lost) two games today, one even, one handicap. Learned: Better coordinate pokes at aji. Count value and accurately. Prioritize corners and territory. Reach into mutually valuable places- add to yourself while subtracting from opponent.

Day 3

The whole day was (4) games and review, besides breaks for lunch and dinner. Learned: Sometimes it's okay to get cut if you don't want too heavy of a group Don't abandon the fight- continue until position feels secure A surrounded stone still effects things later on

Day 4

Your physical and mental health have so much to do with how well you play. You can lose to anyone if you slip up at the right time. Consistency and focus count for a lot. Make less mistakes than opponent. Can you push the game into a situation they are likely to mess up?

Retaining players after teaching them is difficult. How to give beginners a good enough first experience with the game that they will want to continue? Also, how to bring chess players into the Go world? How to make Go more accessible in everyday spaces?

Day 5

You're not entitled to wins. The better you get the more you play better players and the more your victories have to do with the details. The tiniest details.

I began studying the flying knife joseki and some others I had been wondering about.

Tea Zone was a cool place

Played a 4 handi game and a teaching game, watched one. Tried to stream later but had to update my drivers. Discovered a three volume collection of modern joseki books. I can't read the chinese that explains the moves but I can read the moves and try to understand

Day 6

I taught John some josekis and played out a teaching game with him. I played against David, a 5 dan, and almost won, with an 80 point swing after an ambitious fight. He said he enjoyed my “fighting spirit”. I played too cautiously after that and still lost by 12

My stream went really well and I even got trolled by Devin on his alt account. His computer gave him away so I knew it was him. We played out a pretty crazy game with a lot of laughs.

I want to practice being more cheerful on stream; less anxious.

Day 7

I'm losing a lot. Like really a lot. But I'm reforming the way I think about the board. My reading is actually pretty good, it's more about my positional judgement, large scale tactics. Knowing I need to do something but deciding to do something else. Discipline and scope

Day 8

Started a book, Golden Opportunities, which will help with order of moves. I was tired today and found it hard to stay socially engaged. But I studied tsumego, reviewed yesterday's stream loss, and played a teaching game with a beginner. Also learned Magnet Go, a variant.

Day 9

Analogy is important for approaching things so complex as Go. Naming certain patterns things they remind you of or give you feelings of helps solidify them in your memory.

Don't play moves you don't want to play. You don't have to.

Day 10

I think I understand bent four in the corner. I never looked deep enough into it before. It's actually an amazing board situation in its nuance. My test is to see if I'd be able to teach it to someone.

Mindset is everything. If you're not present, fully, for the art or game or work or whatever be in front of you, the art or game or work suffers.

(To be continued...)

by Ursa Woodring

From June 16-19, the Burning Board Tournament was held in North Carolina. Five people from the Baduk House, three residents and two local Columbus players, drove eight hours to Umstead State Park near Raleigh. The competition was held at Camp Lapihio, where half the participants stayed the night in cabins, while the other half came from their homes nearby.

This was my very first in person go tournament, so I was very excited for it, and excited to spend a long weekend in the woods(especially during the heatwave). The Baduk House group stayed in a large cabin, where I opted to sleep on its porch.

On the first day of the tournament, the matches began soon after nine. Taking place in a camp mess hall, short tables and benches are lined up in the middle of the room, with three games per table. After people pair up, there is activity and buzz as players find their tables and try to figure out how to set their clocks. But eventually things settle down, and the room gets quiet as the games become serious. I myself don’t understand how the clocks work, and I end up losing on time without realizing it twice in my games (luckily I was already losing both of them so it didn’t really matter). After the first round is over, lunch is had, and then the second round begins at one.

Once the games are over, Yuan Zhou, 7-Dan, does a lecture outside and Ying Shen 2P plays simuls against anyone interested. If not interested in those things, people spent their late afternoon taking naps, going on walks or runs, swimming in the lake, or getting soaked in the thunderstorm. Many in the Baduk House group enjoyed the lectures greatly, as Zhao reviewed one of the day’s games and told many interesting stories. In the evening, people made their own dinners, hung out reviewing or playing games, or playing other games like Poker, Hanabi, or Shogi.

On the last day, there was the award ceremony and the great burning of the board. Three from the Baduk House received awards, Javier coming second overall in the tournament with 5 wins and 1 loss. I came in second in my division, and Paul came third in his.

Although playing two serious go games per day was tiring, it was quite fun. My favorite part of the tournament was getting to meet more go players and experience more of the go community.

After dinner, in the camp’s fire pit was built a fire. And on this was placed a goban. A game was partially played out on top of it using white pebbles and bits of dark charcoal. All the go players gathered, and watched as the game smoldered, wood blackening and warping, flames licking it around the edges. We watched as the board burned and the tournament came to an end. Hopefully though, it will be just the beginning, and this tournament will be held again and again in the years to come.

This post was skillfully written by resident member Ursa Woodring.

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It was the 21st of May and I was looking at socks–or rather–looking at my sister and mother looking at socks. Mostly, I just wandered around REI, wondering about what was going to happen next: driving to the Baduk House. After my family finally made their purchases, my mother, father, sister, sister’s friend, and I got back into the van and off we drove.

Upon arriving, I'm greeted by Devin, and taken on a tour of the house. Upstairs there are two bedrooms shared by the residents. And there are two offices, one equipped with a set up to stream live games. The two residents already here—Jae and Eric—are quietly working on their computers. Downstairs one room contains a floor table with gobans set out and ready to play on. More gobans lie in a corner, and two floor gobans are stacked on top of each other so they can be reached from a regular-height chair. On a wall is a cork board filled with sticky notes outlining project tasks that are being worked on. In the kitchen, the fridge also has sticky notes on it: each one assigned to a different person to track chores.

“What color do you like?” Devin asks me. I say yellow. I’m given a set of yellow dishes that I will use during my time here. After that, I say goodbye to my family and begin playing the game.

I learned to play go over the quarantine summer of 2020. My sister begged me to learn after she had been playing for a couple months. At first, I was intimidated by the seemingly endless possibilities that the game presents, but once I started learning, I found it fun enough to keep going. Now I’ve been playing for two years and decided to immerse myself more into it by going to the Baduk House.

Hopefully here I will be able to steal all the go secrets from the other residents (So far, I’ve observed the goodness of clamps(for non-go players: a clamp is like a stone sandwich—delicious!)); and learn some strategies for starting my own go club when I go back to Asheville, North Carolina.

In my first week at the house, many things happened. Two more residents came: Javier and Ragnarr, from Spain and Texas respectively. I also met many go players at the local go clubs. In the large go book library at the house, I noticed the full collection of Hikaru no go. Since I was in the middle of reading the series, I excitedly continued reading the next volumes in it. I also began writing my own comic about trying to explain the Baduk House to the dentist.

For memorial day, we took a trip to the Green Lawn Abbey nearby, where we perused the stained glass windows and ate ice cream. There was a scavenger hunt to find particular pieces of the stained glass windows, and upon completion, we won some tickets to the outdoor movie night events that the abbey hosts. Then we went to the Green Lawn Cemetery where they were giving out free hotdogs. There, we searched for the oldest gravestone.

Since we all wanted to do more tsumego problems (a type of go puzzle), in the second week, we decided to have an hour a day where we all do our tsumegos. This was a big hit, and is now something that everyone looks forward to.

In the manga I was reading, Hikaru is challenged to play a no komi game (Komi gives extra points to white, so in a no komi game, white is at a disadvantage because black goes first) and try to make the game perfectly even—a tie. This is a very tricky thing to do because you have to consistently count points and adjust your play when your opponent does something unexpected.

I asked Devin if he’d ever tried to do this. He said that this is his strategy with new players. The next time I was at go club, I decided to attempt it. My opponent was a 13 kyu (not a new player), and we were playing with komi, but I still tried to make it as close as possible. I found that this approach to playing a weaker player made the game much more fun. My opponent got the satisfaction of playing a close game, while I tried to find moves that wouldn’t be too slack or too aggressive. I ended up winning by a point and a half. This was one of the interesting things I’ve learned so far.

Hopefully one day I will end a game in a perfect tie.

For anyone not aware, I started a residency program for Baduk, open to people from all over the world to apply and live a life more fully dedicated to this wonderful game! Below is the first in what I hope will be a series of post about how things are going there. This first post is written by resident member Jeremiah “Jae” Donely.

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WARNING: What you’re about to read was from a complete amateur. It might be cringe, hard to read, or hard to comprehend.

The First Week

Whenever you do something new there is always that time people need to acclimate themselves to it. With six other people coming into someone's home there was a risk that it might just not work in the first week. However I think, for me at least, transitioning into the program was easy but not without some chaos. I personally had no trouble but I know a few of my Baduk House mates definitely had doubts.

The first week was a bit chaotic for me, as I had no plan nor schedule I followed. Not in any particular order I just slept, played Baduk and did volunteer work. Other than the teaching games I needed to give I was basically free to do whatever.

You could really just consider the first week as the trails of acquaintance. I think almost instantly Angelo and Soren clicked. Like two peas in a pod from an outside perspective. Eva-Dee was very charismatic and helpful with technology! Jake and I mostly can be viewed as the “want to play baduk